Many blamed the USOC for concealing the truth about doping scandals; now it is proven with documents"Many blamed the USOC for concealing the truth about doping scandals; now it is proven with documents," the World Anti-Doping Agency Chairman Dick Pound, said.Secrets may come to light even after 15 years. Nevertheless, all secrets get disclosed sooner or later. Sometimes it may happen that the most unexpected disclosures occur.

In fact, within the period of 1988-2000, over 100 American athletes were allowed to participate in different sporting events, including Olympic games, after they failed a doping test. The decision to admit them to the events was passed by the leadership of the US Olympic Committee (USOC); also, without hesitating, the Committee broke its own instructions and the prohibitions imposed by the International Olympic Committee.

Legendary American athlete Carl Lewis, the winner of nine Olympic gold medals in sprinting and broad jumping, has told his story to the whole world. With this, the USOC found itself in a very uneasy situation.

Already last week the American magazine Sports Illustrated obtained incredibly sensational revelatory information concerning the USOC from Dr. Wade Exum, who was director of the USOC anti-doping service in 1991-2000. The information comprised over 30,000 printed pages. And Carl Lewis, one of the people involved in the doping affair, has been forced to give a public comment on the situation.

In an interview with the newspaper Orange County Register, Carl Lewis, 41, said he had been caught using drugs in 1988, but still was allowed to participate in the sporting events. That was a decision of the US Olympic Committee. The USOC decided that the athlete doped unintentionally: they said he had no notion that a cold medicine that he used contained some prohibited components (which were pseudo-ephedrine, ephedrine and phenylpropanilamine, stimulants prohibited for use). In the words of Lewis, "hundreds of people were caught using doping," and, in the same way as Lewis himself, all of them were allowed to participate in the international sporting events.

Carl Lewis says those prohibited substances that he used "gave him no advantages at the competition." The chairman of the World Anti-Doping Agency Dick Pound thinks that already at that time Carl Lewis "was an experienced athlete and knew what medicines were allowed or prohibited for use."

In 1988, at the Seoul Olympic Games, Carl Lewis won the gold soon after Canadian Ben Johnson, the winner of the finals in a 100 meter heat (with the world record of 9.79 seconds), was disqualified for doping. According to the Russian news agency ITAR-TASS, Ben Johnsonís former manager has learned about Wade Exum's disclosures and is demanding that the American athlete give the gold medal back to the offended Canadian athlete.

It is not ruled out that this story may give rise to more scandalous revelations of this kind. Famous American athletes who proved positive in doping tests won about 20 Olympic medals in 1988, 1996 and 2000.